Portrait of an Unknown Lady: Technical Analysis of an Early Tudor Miniature

The Portrait of an Unknown Lady at the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) has, in recent years, proved one of the most divisive of all Tudor miniatures, and to date there is little consensus over the identity of the sitter, the attribution of the artist, or the date of the object. This paper will address all three of these questions, through a combination of traditional art-historical enquiry and a technical examination undertaken as part of a survey of the early miniatures at the YCBA. This includes microscopy examination of the paint surface, X-ray, infra-red, and XRF pigment analysis. The paper will also give consideration to the identity of the sitter and will argue against previous suggestions of Elizabeth I and Lady Jane Grey, but will propose instead that this important miniature is a depiction of Princess Mary, later Mary I, a key figure of the Tudor dynasty.